PARKERSBURG - Alternate arrangements were made Wednesday so a march and rally for legalizing marijuana for medicinal uses won't conflict with the family-oriented "Parkersburg Through the Looking Glass" event on Saturday. The Mountaineers for Medical Cannabis was planning a rally at Bicentennial Plaza from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at the same time of the day-long downtown Through the Looking Glass promotion organized by the Parkersburg-Wood County Convention and Visitors Bureau. The bureau has been planning the event for several months, and Wednesday was the first time anyone with the agency had heard of the medical marijuana rally. [continues 713 words]
Numerous busts against local methamphetamine labs have been the result of greater vigilance and proactive law enforcement, a member of the Parkersburg Narcotics Task Force said Monday. Police have thwarted 92 labs since 1998, about 50 of those since January, making the area one of the most active in the state, said Capt. Rick Woodyard. He suspects there's at least as many more operating here. "It's not going to go away," said Woodyard, speaker at Monday's meeting of the Parkersburg Rotary Club. [continues 616 words]
The Parkersburg Police Department will receive a $222,222 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for the city's community policing program. The grant is part of $17.7 million awarded nationally to combat the production and use of methamphetamine, U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., said. The money will be used for enforcement, training and laboratory cleanup, he said. Numerous arrests and raids of methamphetamine laboratories and operations in the city, county and region have taken place in recent years. The Parkersburg Narcotics Task Force Wednesday raided three alleged labs in Wirt County. [continues 246 words]
A Wood County delegate is asking President Bush for a full-time Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Parkersburg to better fight drug-dealing criminals. Methamphetamine dealers like Wood County for its location and proximity to other states and because of West Virginia's lax laws against the manufacture and sale of the dangerous and addictive drug, Del. John Ellem, R-Wood, said. "Because we are a border county, we are attractive to methamphetamine dealers, who can manufacture their product in West Virginia and then market it to customers in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio," Ellem said. "Regrettably, the meth dealers find our state particularly appealing because we have the least punitive methamphetamine laws of the three states. I have proposed legislation to correct this problem at the state level." [continues 404 words]
